East Rutherford, N.J. - The
Seattle Seahawks talked the talk, and they certainly walked the walk.

They chewed up and spat out the New Orleans Saints
in the NFC divisional playoff round then clamped down on the San Francisco
49ers in the conference championship game.

Sunday night, they came up with their most
impressive performance of the postseason, manhandling Peyton Manning and the
Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium for the franchise's
first NFL title. Pete Carroll joined Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win a college football national title and a Super Bowl.

Seattle played with its typical swagger on defense,
inducing a safety on the first offensive snap of the game and a Manning
interception late in the first quarter.

Then the Tracy Porter moment happened again for
Manning.

Seattle's Cliff Avril bull-rushed through Broncos
right tackle Orlando Franklin and smashed into Manning as the Denver passer
looked for Knowshon Moreno. The ball fluttered as Moreno waited for it to land
in his hands, but Seattle linebacker Malcolm Smith sprinted ahead of the
stationary Moreno to pick off the pass.

Smith, who also scooped up a fumble in the third
quarter, meandered through the Broncos' disoriented offensive players for a
69-yard interception return for a touchdown to push Seattle to a commanding
22-0 lead with 3:21 left in the second quarter. It was the longest interception
return for a touchdown in the Super Bowl since Porter's 74-yard interception
return for a score in the Saints' Super Bowl XLIV win, also against Manning.

"Teams have to deal with us," Smith said about the
defense's penchant for dominant performances against the likes of Manning, Drew
Brees and the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick. "They've got to deal with our defense.
They've got to play to our level if they want to compete with us."

Smith was chosen the game's MVP, the first
defensive player to earn that distinction since Super Bowl XXXVII when Tampa
Bay's Dexter Jackson won the honor. Smith also came up with the game-ending
interception against the 49ers in the NFC championship game.

"I told you we're
the best defense ever, man," defensive end Michael Bennett said. "We could
have played anyone today and done the same thing."

Oft-injured Seattle receiver Percy Harvin continued
the dominance in the second half. He took the opening kickoff on a bounce and
dashed through the Broncos for an 87-yard touchdown return to extend the lead
to 29-0.

Manning's duck dynasty took a turn for the worse
late in the first quarter when his pass attempt landed in the arms of Seahawks
safety Kam Chancellor for Denver's second turnover of the quarter. Manning felt
the pressure of the Seahawks' swarming defense and tossed an errant pass over
tight end Julius Thomas, allowing Chancellor to snag the interception.

It was the first of four takeaways for Seattle, and
proved the NFL's No. 1 offense stood no chance against the league's top-ranked
defense.

"There's no way you
can anticipate affecting a world champion, a record-setting offense and the
kind of season he was having, there's no way, even with the season we had, that
you could anticipate him having a bad game like that," Sherman said. "But we
affected him a little bit and made some big plays. ...

"Everybody played
their behinds off. It was more about what our players did well than Peyton."

Marshawn Lynch didn't need a "Beast Mode"
run to make it 15-0. He simply plowed his way through the Denver defensive
front early in the second quarter for a 1-yard score to cap off the one-two
punch of a Denver turnover turning into a Seattle touchdown.

Even Lynch spoke briefly after the game saying, "next
to being born" that Sunday was the best day of his life.

The outcome seemed doomed for Manning and the
Broncos from the start.

Manning appeared to be moving toward the line of
scrimmage to communicate with the offensive line but center Manny Ramirez snapped
the ball over the shoulder of a surprised Manning. Moreno recovered near the
back of the end zone for a safety only 12 seconds into the game. Manning said
after the game the miscue was no one's fault and blamed it on a cadence issue.

Manning, the five-time and freshly crowned NFL Most
Valuable Player, played by far his worst game of the season thanks to Seattle's
pass rush and vaunted "Legion of Boom" secondary. Manning went 34-of-49
passing for 280 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions as the Broncos
became the first franchise in NFL history to lose five Super Bowls.

"Certainly, to get behind them and give them the
lead, played into their hands," Manning said. "That's what they do to a lot of
teams. I think when you get the lead on a team, it definitely benefits their
team and their defense. We certainly didn't do that."

Meanwhile, Seattle's 5-foot-11 Russell Wilson
became the shortest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl. He was 18-of-25
passing for 206 yards with two TDs.

"We believed we'd
get here, and at the beginning of the year, I told guys we had a team," Wilson
said. "We had a players-only meeting and I told all of the players a story my
dad used to always tell me. He used to always kind of tap me and say, 'Hey, why
not you? Why can't you be a world champion or whatever you want to be?'

"So I told the
guys, 'Why not us?' It's only my second year, but I believed in the guys we
have. I believe in the coaching staff. ...